Unfortunate Incidents at Hogwarts
by Denian
Summary: Can you kill a Dark Lord with a snowball? Who is responsible for potions class becoming an elective? Find out...
1. Chapter 1

**Unfortunate Incidents at Hogwarts**

* * *

**Prelude: Introduction and Disclaimer**

The incidents recorded herein take place within the Harry Potter universe, brought to us by J. K. Rowling and those she sold her soul – sorry, I meant to say her _rights_, of course – to. Sadly, the only things _this_ author can claim are, therefore, a sense of humour and some truly ridiculous ideas, the rest belonging to the previously mentioned parties. Said parties are also the only ones who might, in some twisted way, make some money from this.

Sadly, the author cannot even truthfully claim that all ideas are his. Should you, therefore, recognize parts of your own work, feel flattered: Your ideas impressed somebody enough to be remembered.

As per my usual policy, this disclaimer is valid for _every_ chapter of this story. If anybody cannot accept this, _please_ go and find a book in which every chapter begins with the words "the words in this chapter are part of the English language and do not belong to the author", or something like that.

Beware that some of the incidents might not strictly adhere to any logic – neither yours, nor that of _Terra Arcana_ (see other works by this author), nor even the dodgy logic of the original Harry Potter universe.

This is a cage full of plot bunnies. Light blue and pink plot bunnies, with unicorn horns piercing halos and flying on bat wings. Approach with caution – thou hast been warned.

Oh, and please correct me if that last sentence was wrong.

* * *

**First incident: Of Dark Lords and Snowball fights**

Strange things happen all the time. Those who do not usually get their fill of unexplainable occurrences need only look at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, located somewhere in Scotland.

The list of unanswered questions to be asked in that place varies and expands daily, beginning with the very name of the prestigious institution itself: What, exactly, is the difference between witchcraft and wizardry? Is there any difference at all? Even the most detailed, extensive and boring tomes of magical theories do not offer an answer.

Actually, none of them even mention the question, but that is another problem to be discussed at another, more appropriate time.

_Not_ to be found on said list _at all_ are any questions related to snowballs. One might try to find any unanswerable question regarding those fascinating, explicitly non-magical artefacts, but sadly, snowballs are _fun_. What this means is that even magical people, who are notoriously lazy, have spent years, centuries even, contemplating these items, answering any questions they could come up with in as detailed a way as possible.

In fact, there are several of the aforementioned tomes which include only topics related to snowballs, beginning with _Arithmetical Properties of Spherical Accumulations of Frozen Water_ and ranging all the way to _Weirdly Ineffective: 1473 Spells which do not affect snowballs at all_.

Though it is definitely more interesting to read, for some strange reason, fewer copies of the second book have been bought than of the first.

One strange event, which happened just before Christmas of 1991, was triggered by such simple items, though. Admittedly, they were not _quite_ as simple: they were enchanted.

You might now ask the obvious question: What could one enchant a snowball to do? For answers to this question, please refer to the other books written by the author of _Weirdly Ineffective_. They contain several most detailed lists.

The snowballs in question, though, were simply enchanted to follow (and continuously hit) the headgear of the current professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts, one Quirinus Quirrel. No never-melt enchantment, nor even a simple colour change.

What this resulted in was one thoroughly soaked turban.

What _this_ resulted in was the (un-) fortunate choking of the parasitical entity located in the back of his head.

Why mention this at all? After all, this professor's predecessors had a fifty percent mortality rate, the rest invariably finding (or being presented with) an undeniable reason not to teach for a second year.

The reason this should be mentioned is the sheer lack of attention the parasitical presence paid to its own existence. After all, it was a soul fragment of a Dark Lord, so it really _should_ have known better.

The author hereby informs any future replacement of this Dark Lord of several facts.

Firstly, drinking unicorn blood results in a _generally_ cursed existence. It works by activating the extended version of Murphy's Law (yes, this needs to be capitalized): Whenever anything _can_ go wrong, it _will_ do so at the most inopportune moment possible for the drinker. If it _can't_ go wrong, circumstances will change so it goes wrong anyway.

Secondly, physical manifestations of possessions need access to the same body functions as they would in a full body. For a face, for example – which it was in this case – both mouth and nose need to be connected to the lungs, arteries and veins to the heart, etc. To be fair though, the Dark Lord in question _did_ get this part right.

Thirdly, during a possession the possessor is counted as incarnated and, therefore, for all intents and purposes mortal. To avoid certain death, the possessor needs to separate from the host _before_ the host dies.

Lastly, breathing in vast quantities of icy water using a face connected to the host's lungs might just kill the host.

The destruction of the main soul piece of Tom Marvolo Riddle, alias Lord Voldemort, was counted as a suicide and murder of his host, one Quirinus Quirrel. The twins Fred and George Weasley, who had enchanted the snowballs, were found not guilty in this case.


	2. Chapter 2

**Unfortunate Incidents at Hogwarts**

* * *

**Second incident: Exploding Snape**

The first year class of 1991 at Hogwarts School of the Unexplained Name (see first incident) had one dubious claim to fame: in spite of that class being the smallest in over a century, they held the record for the most melted, detonated, dissolved or otherwise destroyed cauldrons in a single class period as well as in a single year. The one person mostly responsible for this was one Neville Longbottom, who destroyed his cauldron with astounding, if disturbing, regularity.

They did not, however, hold the record for the most destroyed cauldrons in seven years. They were denied this last record due to one simple fact: about halfway through their first year, potions class was changed to an elective.

This was due to one incident in which, and this should be noted, young Mr Longbottom was completely innocent.

What happened in this specific potions class was, instead, caused by two of his classmates: Mr Seamus Finnegan and Mr Dean Thomas, who were alleviating their boredom by playing a game of cards in class.

Now, a normal deck of cards would not have caused the resulting problem. The young wizards were just starting a round of Exploding Snap, though. The game was popular due to two things: First, explosions were even more awesome than snowballs. This is arguable, though. Second, by extending the name by one letter, Exploding Snap became Exploding Snape, instead.

It should be noted that about three quarters of those who had graduated from Hogwarts since one Severus Snape began teaching potions class absolutely _hated_ said professor. The Ravenclaw alumni hated him for grading their work lower than their intense studying deserved. Those from Hufflepuff hated him for grading their hard work lower than it deserved. The Gryffindors... let's not go there.

Now, playing in class should be discouraged for several reasons. At Hogwarts, playing in class leads to several of the more uncomfortable detentions. The reason for this was demonstrated once professor Snape confiscated a seemingly normal deck of cards from two young Gryffindors and, after stalking back to the front of the classroom, carelessly threw them down on his desk.

The card at the bottom exploded.

The rest of the deck was propelled into the air by the explosion – several of them landing in his own simmering potion, others floating down into the flames _beneath_ said cauldron.

The explosion caused by several explosive cards falling into flames was only surpassed by the explosion caused by a greater amount of explosive cards dissolving in a potion, which was currently in a critical stage.

Severus Snape was posthumously awarded the Order of Merlin, first class, for physically shielding a full class of students from an exploding potion after removing the explosive agent from the students' work tables. The full details were never again mentioned.

Potions class was made an elective, and several strict safety protocols were implemented. One of those was that Neville Longbottom was not permitted to take said elective. Nobody ever noticed that said student had, during his last potions class, managed to produce a perfect headache solution for the very first time.

Also, Exploding Snap was officially renamed to Exploding Snape.


	3. Chapter 3

**Unfortunate Incidents at Hogwarts**

* * *

**Third incident: The Hogwarts Training Course of Mysteries**

True to its rather dubious reputation as the world's finest magical school, Hogwarts has recently begun offering a training course for one of the most revered jobs the British magical government offers: The job of an Unspeakable, an employee of the Department of Mysteries of the Ministry of Magic.

While it is of no relevance _that_ nobody knows any Unspeakables, or even what exactly an Unspeakable actually does, the author wants to offer his own opinion of _why_ this is the case: Life insurances. To keep it short, if the representative of the insurance agency is not permitted to know the cause of death, a suicide cannot be ruled out, therefore the agency has a reason to withhold payment. As a curious side note, the job contract for all ministry employees includes a life insurance by a ministry owned agency.

Far more interesting, though, is why Hogwarts – a school which has never offered any job preparation courses at all – suddenly decided to offer such a course for this specific job, starting in 1992.

For undisclosed reasons, an incredibly powerful magical artefact, known as "The Mirror of Erised", had found its way into the school during the previous year. The artefact itself, its astounding ability of gathering, interpreting and extrapolating memories and their attached emotions aside, was quite dangerous for one reason: It shows the person gazing into the mirror their deepest desire, visualized in a way so enticing as to prevent them from leaving for as long as possible.

Originally created to test the strength of will of a nobleman's vassals, it was discarded and labelled as unreliable when the nobleman himself stood before it. Some servant, managing to get a glimpse at the image appearing in the mirror, had mistaken the wife of the nobleman in the rather explicit scene for the daughter of a local farmer. It should be noted that this lead to the first divorce initiated by a woman in the magical world.

At Hogwarts, though, this artefact was discovered by a pair of twins. Said twins, who had enchanted some snowballs to follow a teacher several weeks before, decided to use the mirror for their own financial gain. They set up a desk outside the door to the classroom with the mirror, cleaned the room up, brought in some comfortable furniture in front of the mirror and began renting out the room, mostly to single male students from third to seventh year.

Roughly two months later, one of said students – a seventh year with rather good marks in transfiguration – decided that he wanted to regard his desire (which he later refused to describe in any specific way) from more than one angle. He conjured a mirror behind where the desired object was located in the mirror image.

It is rather fascinating that this student managed to observe that the Mirror of Erised had a reaction time. He later admitted, while glaring at a classmate passing by at the side of a rather fetching fifth year girl, that, for roughly half a second, he had seen his heart's desire's heart's desire, just before he turned and ran from the room.

About half an hour later, the then current transfiguration teacher entered the room and promptly awarded the student a generous (and unspecified) amount of house points for managing a permanent conjuration. She could not explain, though, why both mirrors now show nothing but the number 21, neither of them being inverted.

The headmaster of Hogwarts, though, decided to keep the room as it is and allow students to research both mirrors "in all physically and magically non-destructive ways they might imagine, to further their knowledge of and appreciation for magic, its wonders and the possible dangers associated with them". The official training course was created when the department head of the Department of Mysteries decided to offer an anonymous employee to supervise said research.

Though it is of no further consequence, the author wants to mention that, to the best of his knowledge, no newly employed unspeakable since then has ever attended said course.


End file.
